La valeur stylistique du néologisme en psychopathologie : de la structure à l’énonciation

Abstract

ObjectiveTo give an account of the value of neologism in psychopathology starting with the era of structuralism in linguistics, neurology, and psychiatry; to open its interpretation to an enunciative and stylistic perspective. MethodAfter having evoked its genesis, we will recall the importance of structural linguistics in G. Lantéri-Laura's study of the pathology of language, and of neologism, especially semantic neologism, which we will compare with A. Roch-Lecours’ differentiation of schizophasia and aphasias. Then, we will evoke the new intelligibility of the phenomenon thanks to the enunciative perspective that emerged in linguistics at the end of the 20th century. ResultsWhile the neurological and psychiatric conceptions of the pathology of language are not incompatible, the psychopathological analysis of the value of the neologism requires, more particularly, the analysis of the semantic plane, for which the structuralist approach remains fruitful. Indissociable from the delusion in which it appears and from the semantic organization of the fantasy that underlies it, the neologism's function seems to be one of restoring the faulty agreement between signifier and signified, and of tempering the arbitrariness of the sign. DiscussionThe contemporary approach to the value of the neologism in psychosis requires, however, going beyond the reference to the structural approach alone by taking into account, as in contemporary linguistics, the enunciative and stylistic dimension of the subject's inscription. In psychoanalysis, the work of J. Lacan leads, in the same perspective, to a conception of the role of the neologism as an attempt to restore the place of the subject, torn between quotation and enigma, and of the symbolization of the disagreement between signifier and signified, as underscored by C. Lévi-Strauss. ConclusionFrom structure to enunciation, the contemporary study of the value of the neologism in psychopathology must take into account its enunciative and stylistic component at the junction between psychoanalysis and contemporary linguistics.